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The Honda Fit: the perfect back-to-school special

DanNeil

Keep your boat. My financial goal is to get my twin girls through college, though hell bar the way. After that, I expect there will be a lot of daytime TV and assisted showering.

At some point, I’ll probably buy the girls their first cars. Yes, as a teenager I was obliged to work and borrow to pay for mine. And I guess I was somehow taught self-reliance by the experience? Of course, I was self-reliant to start with and didn’t actually need a crushing car payment for moral instruction.

Anyway, my hope is that my kids will turn away from personally owned transportation. Ride sharing and autonomous-driving technologies together will transform mobility and the private-ownership model, and not a minute too soon. By the time my kids are of college age, 12 years from now, the notion of shipping off a sizable chunk of monthly income for the privilege of driving your own car a few minutes a day will seem slightly mad, perhaps even in bad taste.

If so, that would certainly save me a few bucks. Otherwise, I’ll be looking at cars.

What should their first car be? Something with advanced dude-repellent technologies, I think. At a minimum, something inconspicuous, full of purpose, a car that gets to classes on time. Less than $20,000, even if I could afford more. Megasafe, obviously (huge asterisk here). Inexpensive to operate—including long-term ownership costs, residual value and fuel economy. The first-car calculus is unforgiving. No sentiment allowed.

Also, it’s really helpful, when moving between dorms and apartments, to have flexible cargo capacity. I once moved a full-size U.S. government metal desk in the back of a 1977 Datsun B-210 hatchback.

And…oh yeah, here’s what we’re looking for right here. The Honda Fit. They should call it the Frosh.

The 2015 model year will be a reboot for the Fit here in the States. The car gets a thoroughly modern engine and CVT transmission—and, consequently, top marks in its class for fuel economy (36 mpg, combined, with the CVT) -- and the Fit is now produced for the North American market at Honda’s new assembly hall in Celaya, Mexico. Apparently, Fit supply and logistics were holding back U.S. sales.

Speaking of assembly: Honda
HMC, -2.70%7267, -2.30%
has developed an interesting approach to the chassis, with a sort of inner-and-outer-hull approach, with reinforcing pieces (as at the window sashes) and extensive sound-insulation sandwiched between the structure and body pieces. Sound insulation is key to the Fit’s rejiggering, as we’ll see.

Stuffed adorably under the Fit’s tiny hood is a brand-new 1.5-liter, direct-injected dual-overhead cam engine (previously port-injected and SOHC) with Honda’s broad-authority VTEC working the valves. Horsepower (130 hp at 6,500 rpm) is up 11%; torque (114 lb-ft. at 4,600 rpm) is up 7.5%; meanwhile, the Fit’s fuel economy from the in-line four sees a whopping 16% improvement (EPA-rated 33/41 mpg, city/highway, with the CVT).

The Fit is available with a new 6-speed manual transmission and, of course, that’s the version they sent me, on the theory that all auto journalists prefer manual shifting (effortless clutch, by the way). But only a small minority of Fits will leave dealerships with manual transmissions, if for no other reason than that the targeted cohort—18- to 34-year olds—doesn’t actually know how to drive a stick. The CVT-equipped Fit is also a tick quicker to accelerate to 60 mph and gets 10% better fuel economy.

The inherent weaknesses of a CVT transmission have to do with its driving character: When you accelerate, the car’s powertrain tends to drone until the car reaches cruising speed, when the CVT’s computer tells it to move to higher ratios. Also, a CVT won’t have the crisp initial acceleration of a manual transmission. To cope with the thrumming powertrain, the Fit’s redesign went heavy on sound-deadening materials in the rear fender liners, carpeting and crevasses between frame and body.

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